The Indian banks' total net level of non-performing loans could be double their reported level, even though asset quality has improved over the years, according to a report by Fitch Ratings India Ltd.
However, the budget lacked very specific measures detailing how this will be achieved," the statement said.
S&P Global Ratings on Wednesday upgraded India's sovereign rating outlook to positive from stable while retaining the rating at 'BBB-' on robust growth and improved quality of government expenditure. S&P said it could upgrade India's sovereign rating in the next 2 years if the country adopts a cautious fiscal and monetary policy that diminishes the government's elevated debt and interest burden while bolstering economic resilience.
Fitch Solutions sees RBI keeping benchmark interest rates unchanged during the fiscal to March 2022 following its decision to buy Rs 1 lakh crore of government bonds. "We had initially expected another policy rate cut to arrest the rise in government bond yields since the Union Budget announcement in February. "However, having an explicit bond purchase guidance from the RBI following the announcement of the G-SAP will also achieve a similar effect, if not even be more effective than a rate cut on capping the increase in bond yields," it said in a note. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) held its policy repurchase (repo) rate unchanged at 4 per cent at its monetary policy meeting on April 7.
Sitharaman's Budget missed deficit target for the third year in a row, pushing shortfall to 3.8 per cent of GDP in the current fiscal as compared to 3.3 per cent previously planned.
Despite a significant improvement in asset quality, the country's banking industry might see its bad assets inching up in the months ahead, particularly in retail segment, global rating agency Fitch said.Rising bad loan assets had prompted many banks to sell their sticky assets to asset reconstruction companies, in order to transfer the risk and clean up their balance sheets.
The rating agency revised the outlook for EXIM, SBI, Bank of Baroda, Bank of Baroda (New Zealand), Bank of India, Canara Bank, Punjab National Bank, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank while affirming their ratings. At the same time, Fitch has affirmed IDBI Bank Ltd's (IDBI) rating, while maintaining the outlook at negative.
The rating agency said it has affirmed and withdrawn long and short term Issuer Default Rating of 'BB' and 'B' and 'BB-' rating on Corus' Euro 800 million 7.5 per cent senior notes.
With a slew of new players entering the Indian small car market, segment leaders like Maruti Suzuki India and Hyundai Motor India will face challenge to their domination.
Rating agency Fitch on Thursday affirmed India's foreign and local currency ratings at 'BB+'
The upward revision in growth forecast for current fiscal comes in the backdrop of GDP expanding 8.2 per cent in April-June quarter, higher than Fitch's expectation of 7.7 per cent.
Global rating agency Fitch has upgraded its support ratings for several Indian banks, including ICICI Bank, HDFC, Punjab National Bank, Canara Bank, Bank of India and IDBI among others.
Fitch said the full implications of Patel's resignation will only become clearer once there is some indication of the RBI's policy approach under his replacement, Shaktikanta Das
Standard and Poor's had in April lowered India's rating outlook to negative from stable.
Fitch Ratings on Monday cautioned that the Indian government has little fiscal headroom at its disposal to respond to possible shocks to growth given the country's lowest investment grade credit rating with a negative outlook. "India's public debt/GDP ratio, at about 87 per cent in FY21, is well above the median of around 60% for 'BBB' rated sovereigns. "We revised the Outlook on India's rating to Negative, from Stable, in June 2020, partly owing to our assumptions about the impact of the pandemic on public finance metrics. "The government has little fiscal headroom at its current rating level to respond to possible shocks to growth," it said in a report.
Following the footsteps of ICRA and CRISIL on rating corporate governance, credit rating agency Fitch will also take up such an exercise soon.
Vodafone Idea will gradually lose market share given its weak balance sheet and limited financial flexibility, says Fitch.
Fitch Ratings on Thursday said the resurgence of COVID-19 infections may delay India's economic recovery, but won't derail it, as it kept the sovereign rating unchanged at 'BBB-' with a negative outlook. It projected a 12.8 per cent recovery in GDP in the fiscal year ending March 2022 (FY22), moderating to 5.8 per cent in FY23, from an estimated contraction of 7.5 per cent in 2020-21. Fitch had in June last year revised outlook for India to 'negative' from 'stable' on grounds that the coronavirus pandemic had significantly weakened the country's growth outlook and exposed the challenges associated with a high public debt burden.
Fitch Ratings on Monday said the plan to privatise two state-owned banks in the current financial year ending March 2022 could face delays amid renewed challenges for the Indian banking sector due to the second wave of Covid-19. The government in the Budget announced plans to privatise two public-sector banks. NITI Aayog has been entrusted with the task of selecting the banks and one general insurance company for the privatisation.
Demand for passenger vehicles, which has been on a downhill so far this year, will continue to remain sluggish through the first half of 2014 due to high interest rates which has weakened consumer sentiment, says a Fitch Ratings report.
The proposed reorganisation plan by Reliance Industries Ltd to transfer its refining, marketing and petrochemical (oil-to-chemicals) businesses to a wholly-owned subsidiary is a step towards facilitating participation by strategic investors in the unit, Fitch Ratings said on Tuesday. The reorganisation of the business in Reliance O2C Limited (O2C) "will have a neutral impact on RIL's credit metrics and rating," it said in a statement. The transfer will be on a "slump sale basis", subject to attaining the requisite approvals.
Adani Green Energy Ltd, the renewable energy arm of billionaire Gautam Adani's conglomerate, plans to raise $409 million through US dollar-denominated bonds to repay a debt obligation falling this year. In a regulatory filing, the company said the bond will have a door-to-door tenor of 18 years. The proceeds will be used to redeem the $500 million 6.25 per cent senior secured notes due 2024, it said adding these notes were issued on June 10, 2019.
With their weak metrics and high bad loans, India's state-run banks have not been investor favourites
Rating agency Fitch on upgraded outlook of 10 financial institutionals, including SBI, ICICI Bank and EXIM Bank of India to 'stable' from 'negative' earlier following revision in the country's outlook.
International rating agency Fitch said on Tuesday the change in India's sovereign rating is constrained by the high level of fiscal deficit and its review will be done after the budget for 2005-06 has been presented.
Despite December's deal by U.S. politicians to avoid the so-called "fiscal cliff" of spending cuts and tax hikes, Fitch's head of sovereign ratings, David Riley, said pressure on the country's rating was increasing.
Global credit rating agency Fitch upgraded outlook for the Indian telecom sector from 'negative' to 'stable'.
Fitch frowns at government pay hikes.
According to Fitch rupee is expected to weaken to 72 to a dollar by the end of December 2019, and further to 73 by December 2020, from 69.82 to a dollar in end December 2018.
Struggling to meet budget targets, the government had in the just concluded fiscal asked cash-rich PSUs to pay second interim dividend as well as undertake share buyback.
Stating that a weak fiscal position continues to constrain India's sovereign ratings, Fitch said the next government's medium-term fiscal policy will be of particular importance from a rating perspective.
"Fitch Ratings has placed Punjab National Bank's (PNB) Viability Rating of 'bb' on Rating Watch Negative (RWN), following the large fraud reported by PNB," the US-based agency said in a statement.
The CreditWatch action follows Vedanta's announcement that it would acquire a controlling stake in India-based oil and gas company Cairn India Ltd.
Fitch Ratings has revised India's GDP growth estimate to 12.8 per cent for the fiscal year beginning April 1 from its previous estimate of 11 per cent, saying its recovery from the depths of the lockdown-induced recession has been swifter than expected. In its latest Global Economic Outlook (GEO), Fitch said revision is on the back of "a stronger carryover effect, a looser fiscal stance and better virus containment." "India's second half of 2020 rebound also took GDP back above its pre-pandemic level and we have revised up our 2021-2022 forecast to 12.8 per cent from 11.0 per cent," it said. "Nevertheless, we expect the level of Indian GDP to remain well below our pre-pandemic forecast trajectory."
Moody's Investors Service on Friday warned that the rout in Adani Group shares could hurt the conglomerate's ability to raise capital, while its peer Fitch saw no immediate impact on its ratings. Adani Group's listed companies have lost over USD 100 billion in value in just over a week after short-seller Hindenburg Research's scathing report flagged concerns about the ports-to-energy conglomerate's debt levels and alleged stock manipulation, accounting fraud and the use of tax havens.
Global rating agency Fitch said on Monday that bank credit growth in excess of 13 per cent year on year in FY23 could put pressure on core equity tier ratios (CET1) of banks, especially public sector lenders. It may limit the buffers of Indian banks to absorb potential future losses. Bank credit expanded by 11.5 per cent in FY22. Full-year loan growth for FY23 will represent a modest slowdown from the 17 per cent YoY pace in H1FY23.
'While we note the very strong cyclical recovery in the economy, we believe there is still uncertainty over medium-term prospects.'
Higher food prices can accelerate broader inflation by pushing up wages, while negatively impacting the government finances and reducing monetary policy flexibility, Moody's said in a report.
Fitch Ratings says in a report published on Thursday that the spillover effects of a weaker rupee have not significantly hurt India's creditworthiness, and hence would not trigger any rating action as this point.
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